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GTAP University (GTAP-U): GTAP 101 Courses

Objective

The objective of the GTAP 101 course is to engage participants in an active, team-based process of learning about the GTAP computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and its use in applied economic policy analysis. The curriculum emphasizes an intuitive and graphical treatment of economic theory in the CGE model and provides structured experiences in running the standard GTAP Model, v7 within the RunGTAP software environment. RunGTAP is an intuitive, menu-driven CGE model interface that minimizes technological hurdles and allows course participants to quickly begin to focus on their economic thinking and experimentation. The curriculum is geared to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals. At the end of the course, participants will be entry-level modelers and more informed consumers of CGE-based analyses. The course also serves as an entry point for developing the technical skills required for the GTAP Short Course and other courses offered through GTAP-U.

During the online course, participants will:

  • review core economic theories from micro, macro, trade, and public finance and observe how they are operationalized in an applied general equilibrium model
  • learn to recognize, control, and interpret the theoretically consistent behavior of consumers and producers in the GTAP model
  • observe the aggregated, macroeconomic impacts of microeconomic behavior
  • define model experiments that represent real-world issues
  • learn to interpret general equilibrium model results by integrating their knowledge of multiple fields of economic study
What GTAP 101 "Graduates" Are Saying...

"I would to thank you all for such an amazing and challenging course. The course is well structured for beginners like me and I enjoyed the exercises, quizzes, and the project. I look forward to applying the knowledge I gained from this course and also enrolling for further courses to gain more expertise in training in intermediate and advanced CGE modelling."

"My goal for taking the course was to gain a better idea of how the GTAP CGE model produces its results. The online course met this goal and gave a very good overview of how CGE models operate in general. The material was clear and easy to understand, the exercises gave good hands-on experience, and the instructor was very helpful!"

"I attended several CGE courses before and this GTAP 101 Course is one of the best courses available. This course is well organized and extremely informative. I would like to recommend anyone who is interested in CGE modelling to take this course."

"The main goal was to learn possibilities of GTAP for analyzing the impact of trade liberalization on the country's economy in general and on each sector separately (agricultural, manufacturing and services). Yes. I met my goal and moreover I refreshed my knowledge of core economic theories from macroeconomic, microeconomic, trade and finance."

"The book for this class has been enormously helpful. The writing is crystal clear. The development of topics is handled with extreme care: Very little prior knowledge is assumed and yet the reader is led methodically through technical material without any gaps in explanation and yet, somehow, without ever feeling like the author is being condescending. A masterpiece!"

"It is not one module in special, what I appreciated more is that it is clearly for beginners and each module walked us through the main aspects of CGE. The book is very clear, teacher was great. The discussion questions really help to put hand on, and learn what otherwise would have been left unverified. You think you learnt until you really try to implement it."

"I am really surprised with the GTAP Introductory Course. This experience has changed my view about distance learning courses. It's amazing how the course has improved my knowledge about this subject and increased my desire to learn more and more about equilibrium models. I would like to congratulate you and truly thank each one for this very good period of learning."

"This course is well organized and well put together, I hope many others are able to take advantage of it in the future and I also hope that the connections that were forged through the group research project (which are a great addition to the course by the way) are long-lasting!"

"The model exercises were excellent, along with the dedication of the instructor in addressing all discussion questions. Thanks very much!"

award icon GTAP 101 Course Awarded Purdue University Online Excellence Award

April 2024 - The GTAP-U instruction team of Zeynep Akgul, Ginger Batta, and Amanda Countryman were awarded a prestigious Purdue University Online Excellence Award for Innovative Online Use of Technology for their use of AI text-to-speech software in the GTAP 101 curriculum. This recognition highlights GTAP-Uā€™s commitment to delivering cutting-edge online learning experiences.

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Center for Global Trade Analysis
Department of Agricultural Economics
Purdue University
403 Mitch Daniels Blvd.
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2056 USA

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